


Circumstance

by jenny_of_oldstones



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Circle of Magi, M/M, Ostwick Circle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 13:43:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7363555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_of_oldstones/pseuds/jenny_of_oldstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's easy to forget sometimes that they come from different worlds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circumstance

"Wait..." Trevelyan sat up. "You _visited_ Ostwick Circle?"

"'Visit' is a strong word." Dorian lay in bed beside him, pleasantly drowsy and even more pleasantly sore. The sun had set behind the mountains and turned the dust motes in the Inquisitor's quarters to a twilight gold. "My father brought me south with him on a business trip to Kirkwall when I was a boy. On the way, we sailed past the Ostwick Circle. It was only in view for a few minutes, and we sailed past it before I could get a good look at it." He waved a hand. "It hardly made an impression."

A lie, but he didn't want to hurt Trevelyan's feelings. He remembered all too well the way his father had placed a protective hand on his shoulder as the great, slate colored tower loomed into view amidst the crashing waves. Ostwick Circle stood on a lonely crag of rock in the middle of the sea, crusted with centuries of bird shit and faded with salt spray. It was windowless, colorless, and dug claws of terror into Dorian's heart. 

"This is why our way of life must be protected," his father had whispered and pulled him close. "Remember that, Dorian."

"What year would that have been?" asked the Inquisitor now. 

"9:22, or thereabouts. Harvestmere, if the weather was any indication."

"Huh." Trevelyan lay back down. "Can you imagine? For a few minutes, we were within a stone's throw of each other." 

"More like a few leagues, but we can tell the singers otherwise." He rolled over and draped an arm over Trevelyan's narrow chest. The man was built like a greyhound, with all the restless energy to match.

For once, however, he was very still. 

"You're thinking about something," said Dorian. "I can hear your teeth grinding."

The Inquisitor stroked his arm. "You said Harvestmere that year?"

"Is the date significant?"

"Did I ever tell you I was almost made Tranquil?" asked Trevelyan.

For a moment, there was a sensation like a thousand knives scraping the walls of every cell inside Dorian's body. Coded in the pain were four repeating words: _do not tell me, do not tell me, do not tell me-_

"No," said Dorian. "You didn't."

"Ostwick was....a _sedate_ Circle, as Josephine would put it. We were on a rock in the middle of the sea, in a fortress without windows. Some of the senior enchanters were allowed to travel for the Chantry, but most of us weren't permitted leave. Even the Templars had to drink all the time to deal with it, and they got to go home on the ferry once a month." 

Dorian said nothing. He remembered the slate-grey tower, the wheeling seagulls, and the constant, monstrous crash of the waves.

"After I'd been in the tower for about three years, I started looking for a way to get back to the mainland. I didn't _want_ to escape....I just needed to walk down a street and smell the grass again. I eventually figured out that the empty barrels the Templars used to bring in their ale went out again on the ferry. One morning, I got it in my head to stow away in one."

"As far as escape attempts go, not a bad plan," said Dorian. 

"Discounting the part where the ferryman had a dog? It sniffed out my hiding place, and they dumped me on deck before we even made it to the dock. The Knight-Commander was not happy, I can tell you that."

"I take it he gave you a stern lecture?"

"Oh, the sternest. The old man went red in the face when I kicked my feet up in his desk. Maker, I was thirteen and insufferable. Too bad my antics had long ceased to be cute." 

The lines around Trevelyan's eyes had taken on a strained quality that Dorian didn't like.  _Tell him to stop. Tell him you don't want to hear this rubbish. Tell him you detest confessions for this very reason-_

"The next morning, the Senior Enchanter walked into the apprentice quarters flanked by two Templars. All it took was one look at his face to know why he was there.

"Mages who had been my friends for years didn't say a word as they dragged me out of bed. The Templars took me down the spiral steps of the tower, all the way to the lowest level in the bowels of the rock where you couldn't even hear the sea. There at the bottom was a black corridor with a single room at the end, and in the room was a table with leather restraints on it.

"The Knight-Commander read from Transfigurations while they heated the lyrium and strapped me down. I was crying by then, but I figured, screw it, I'm never going to get the chance again, might as well be a brat. The First Enchanter couldn't even look at me when he took up the brand and put it to my forehead."

Trevelyan's grip had gone iron on Dorian's arm.

"By the time I'd realized the ruse, everyone had walked out of the room. They left me alone in the dark, with nothing but a cold brand on the table and a puddle of piss dripping on the floor.

"An hour passed, maybe two. Eventually, the First Enchanter came back and untied me. He walked me back to my bunk and started babbling about how sorry he was, how it was for my own good, and that if I tried to escape again the Templars would show no mercy. I needed to learn my lesson. He prayed that I learned my lesson."

"And did you?" Dorian heard himself say. "Learn your lesson?" 

Trevelyan turned his head on the pillow. His face was covered in deep scars, and his ear was a ruin where someone had sawed it off with a dull knife. It was the face of an apostate, and an old one at that. 

"Not the one they wanted me to," he said.

The sheets whispered as Dorian pressed closer to him. 

"Five years later, I destroyed my phylactery and escaped. I walked down every street in Val Royeaux and lay on every patch of grass, and no one told me not to." His silence this time was almost apologetic. "Can you imagine, though, if you could go back and tell your younger self that your future lover was only a few miles away? I probably wouldn't have believed it. A mage sailing on a ship, on business? It would have seemed like a fairy tale."

Dorian had quite a different idea of what it would have been like. He imagined telling his eleven-year-old self that the man he would love was in that lonely tower in the middle of the sea being tortured, humiliated....

He would have cried and begged his father to turn the ship around and save him. He would have shed tears, as he had long forgotten how to do now.

Instead, he said, "Well, I can say for certain that your fashion sense in no way reflects the horrors of what I've seen of your southern Circles, so...." He patted Trevelyan's cheek. "Well done."

Trevelyan laughed. "I hope you didn't mind me telling you this."

"Not your usual pillow talk, no....but I suppose it's good to know more about you."

Trevelyan rolled over on top of him. "Take me to Tevinter someday?" 

"You mean to a civilized country with decent cuisine and wine?" _To a place where you'll never be afraid of what you are?_   Dorian kissed him. "You don't even have to ask, amatus." 


End file.
